


The Tale Of This Family Is Its Head

by orphan_account



Category: Castle
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Rick Castle collected people.</i></p><p>Roy Montgomery was Rick Castle's friend even before the writer began shadowing Beckett.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale Of This Family Is Its Head

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Knockout_. Title from a song by _The Beautiful South_.
> 
> Written for Challenge 22: Team Bingo at Castleland on LiveJournal.

The grass was the perfect shade of green, cut to the perfect length so that every blade stood to attention, unbending in the gentle breeze.  The identical white headstones shone in the bright sunlight, perfectly spaced in rows and columns.  Everything about the cemetery screamed precision.  The officers forming the honour guard wore pristine uniforms, all sharp creases, polished metal and gleaming shoes.  Their faces displayed matching solemn expressions as they waited.  

 

Castle didn't feel out of place.  He'd been surrounded by cops for almost three years now.  He was not and never would be a 'proper' police detective, but after living and breathing their work for so long he was about as close as a civilian could get.  He could recite the Miranda rights as easily as he could list his own bestsellers.  He'd learnt the hand and arm signals that the detectives used when silently advancing on a suspect.  He'd memorised the formation that Beckett and her team fell into when entering a building to apprehend an armed killer.  He had gained an insight into how cops' minds worked but he had also come to know about their feelings.  He knew that they shared a special camaraderie.  He'd seen first hand their loyalty to each other.  He'd witnessed the heightened tension when a 10-13 was broadcast and he was aware of the pervading sense of grief that engulfed them all when they lost one of their own.  

 

Now, for the first time, he truly understood it.  

 

Rick had very little experience with grief.  He made his living writing about death but he had lost very few people in his life, and fewer still that he was actually close to.  He barely remembered his mother's parents.  Martha had been estranged from them for as long as he could remember and had barely shed a few theatrical tears when informed of their passing.  Meredith's father had passed away when Alexis was young but Rick hadn't even seen his ex-father-in-law since the day he'd married Meredith.  His mother had lost Chet fairly recently, but even then Rick had barely known the man.  He'd been more concerned about the impact it might have on his mother.  He had mourned Cannell, of course, but even then it had been at a distance.  He'd liked the man a lot, had respected him as a writer and would forever miss him at the poker table, but the two men had hardly been close friends.  

 

Even when he started shadowing homicide detectives and witnessing the fallout of real murders, Rick hadn't experienced true loss.  Contrary to popular opinion he was not immune to the sorrow of a dead body.  He was saddened by the loss of life and felt for the relatives and the friends left behind, he just lacked empathy with how they were feeling.  He coped with his sense of awkwardness through inappropriate jokes and innuendo.  

 

The days since Roy had died had passed in something of a blur.  Rick knew grief now.  He was experiencing it first hand.  He was still in what he'd decided to call the 'numb phase'.  It hadn't entirely sunk in yet.  He wasn't sure how he was going to cope, how any of them were going to cope, when the finality of the situation hit them.  

 

He thought of all the places that he associated with Montgomery.  Would he be able to face their regular table at Old Haunt or the office at the Precinct when one person was so notably absent?  Would he leave another empty chair at the poker table in honour of the missing player?  His Gotham City crew would be forever incomplete without Roy Montgomery.  

 

Roy had been his friend for a long time, even before Castle had begun to consider him a colleague.  The first time they'd met the Commissioner had brought him along to the poker game as a replacement for Judge Harper who'd recently retired to Florida.  

 

 _"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Castle."_

 _  
_

__

_"Rick, please."_

 __

_"Roy."  The two men shook hands.  Rick noted that the recently promoted Captain had a firm grip.  "The wife's a huge fan of your books."_

 __

_"Thank you."  Rick gave him the polite, easy smile that he reserved for these kind of occasions.  "And what about you?"_

 __

_"Oh, I read 'em too."  Roy's eyebrows lifted slightly.  "Not enough cops in there for my liking.  I sometimes wonder how your people manage to solve their mysteries without us.  No offence."_

 __

_"None taken."  Rick appreciated Roy's honesty.  He was genuinely interested in what people thought of his work, even if he was rarely influenced by their opinions.  "I always thought police work was mostly paperwork."_

 __

_Roy laughed.  "Hell, no.  You think all the action's with the CIA and the Feds?  Think again.  You should come by the Precinct sometime, see where the real work's done."_

 __

 _"Oh yeah?"  Rick grinned.  "Maybe I'll take you up on that one day."  He wasn't lying, but he didn't think it likely that he'd be accepting Roy's offer.  Short of being arrested (which was not entirely beyond the realms of possibility) he couldn't see himself turning up at a police station anytime soon._

 __

_Roy leaned closer as though he'd read Rick's mind, and lowered his voice.  "Some of my detectives could tell you stories about outrageous crimes that would make even a writer like you jealous.  There was this one time…"  He launched into a tale about a murder case that had culminated in a stakeout at a karaoke bar._

 __

_Rick Castle collected people.  It was a necessity in his line of work.  You never knew when a man in the CIA or a contact in the Senate might come in useful.  As a charming, easygoing, extremely rich man he had no trouble making and keeping friends.  Right now he had no need of a policeman's knowledge, but that might change in the future, and Montgomery seemed like a good guy.  Better still, he was much more down-to-earth than the Commissioner.  Rick genuinely liked the man and resolved to invite him again._

 

Roy had become as much of a fixture at Gotham City poker nights as Judge Markaway, who'd been attending for years.  He kept telling his stories and Rick kept listening, enjoying the tales but never really taking them seriously.  Derrick Storm was at the height of his career as a PI and sometime CIA asset.  Surely that was more exciting than cops on the beat.  

 

Then Derrick Storm became boring.

 

Then Kate Beckett marched into his book launch party and took him in for questioning.  

 

Rick was no fool.  The mayor's influence was a definite advantage but without Montgomery's support he'd never have been able to stay at the 12th Precinct for three years.  It was Montgomery's house, but he had welcomed Rick inside and let him make himself at home.  Rick wasn't sure why Roy had never objected to his presence, even on the few occasions that the two men had found themselves at odds.  Now that he was gone, however…  

 

Movement brought him out of his musings.  It was time.  As the group moved into position he met Beckett's eyes, matching her serious expression before pulling his sunglasses down onto his nose.  She'd instructed him on exactly what to do and when.  He'd already done his part at the church but this was different.  This was more important.  Ryan and Esposito had gone over the process several times too, separately and together.  He wouldn't let them down.  He wouldn't let Roy Montgomery down.  

 

They lifted the flag-covered coffin from the hearse and positioned it carefully between them.  To the beat of the drums they walked in a perfectly precise march through the honour guard to the grave site.  

 

Five uniformed cops and a sole civilian.  The honour wasn't lost on Castle.  

 

At Esposito's order they lowered the coffin carefully, respectfully, hands lingering on the flag before they straightened.  Castle turned with the others, perhaps not with such military precision but with the same solemnity and respect for the age old ceremony.  As he moved away Castle felt a fresh pang of sorrow as he caught sight of the Montgomery family, Roy's wife and two daughters shoulder to shoulder as they grieved for their loss.  

 

He had only recently come to understand that there were other kinds of family, besides those linked by genetics.  He recalled Beckett's words after it had happened.  _No one outside of this immediate family…_

 

They had been a family, a working family, with Roy Montgomery at their head.  Though the discovery of his past would continue to sting, they remained a family.  Roy had made his stand alone, so that his people could continue to stand together.  

 

Castle had never experienced a closely-knit working community until he started shadowing Beckett.  Thanks to the early discovery of his writing talent and a healthy dose of charm and good looks, he'd never needed to hold down any other job.  He'd been lucky enough never to find himself stacking shelves at a grocery store, waiting tables in a restaurant or shovelling fries in a fast-food joint, so he'd never really experienced a bond between colleagues.  

 

As a writer, he had his publisher, his publicist, his agent and various other people at his disposal.  He had fellow writers as friends and occasionally bounced ideas off his daughter, but when it came down to the basics, he worked alone.  Writing was a solitary profession and that had never bothered him.  It was only after shoe-horning himself into the 12th Precinct that he had come to understand exactly what he'd been missing.  While office workers or factory employees might form close working friendships, cops and firefighters and other people who risked their lives together on a daily basis formed surrogate families.  They looked out for each other and had each other's backs.  

 

Without Montgomery's support Castle would never have lasted long enough at the 12th to become a member of that family.  

 

Castle exchanged a short nod with Esposito and Ryan and a longer look with Beckett before they all took their places for the next part of the ceremony.  

 

Their family had lost its head, but they would never lose their way.  They would continue to stand together.  

 

 **End**

**Author's Note:**

> Seeing Castle among the pallbearers in _Knockout_ was a really touching moment for me. I'm a sucker for the work-family thing.
> 
> I googled the officer down code for NYPD. If it's wrong then it's thanks to my poor googling skills.


End file.
